


(a little gloomy here, I am) available for purchase

by headbuttingbears



Category: Kingdom (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Porn, Exhibitionism, Heavy Angst, Homophobic Language, I'm Sorry, M/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 10:59:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16196183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headbuttingbears/pseuds/headbuttingbears
Summary: Then the photographer turns away, leaves Nate shivering against the wall of the air-conditioned basement to plug his camera into the laptop. "You up for a quick jerk-off scene? It's an extra hundred bucks." | Nate needs the extra hundred bucks.





	(a little gloomy here, I am) available for purchase

**Author's Note:**

> I watched this for a hot infuriating second and my primary takeaway was that Nate deserved better. This is not really better, but at least he's alive.
> 
> AU for the end of S3E09 - Cactus. Contains show-appropriate homophobic language.
> 
> Title from Emily Corwin's "hurting to ask you."

_What the fuck did I expect?_ keeps looping through Nate's head as Alvey snarls, "You little prick, you fucking-"

Jay might as well be wet tissue paper for how much mind either of them pay him. He's there if Nate squints, a barrier if he accepts it, but he disappears the moment he locks eyes on Alvey. Everything disappears, his entire life, and all he can hear is his father calling him a faggot, _you fucking faggot, how can you do this to_ me?

All he can hear is his fist making contact with Alvey's face, Alvey's body, the skittering of their shoes over the asphalt as they lock and grapple, only to be forced apart again by Jay sliding between them, dividing them, turning away to shove Alvey back.

Nate's throat is a road rash scrape of pain. Throat, head, his fucking blood boiling away inside him like water on a skillet, and his father reaches around Jay for him, trying to haul him in close so he can hit him again. Hit him just for being honest, for not being afraid for a whole twenty seconds in his entire miserable life, for not being the perfect wind-up soldier he'd worked so hard to make him into.

From the corner of his eye he sees Jay, arms wrapped around their dad, not answering as Alvey yells, over and over, "Did you know? Did you fucking know? How can you do this to me? The two of you, the most ungrateful fucking-" Over and over.

Nate's shaking so bad he's surprised he doesn't bore a hole through the parking lot as his head clears and he realizes this is it. This is how it'll always be. It'll always be Alvey, self-involved, his kids only an extension of himself, thinking Nate did this to spite him. Came out as a queer just to get back at him for any number of slights real and imagined. Came out as some kind of cosmic punishment to knock the legendary Alvey Kulina back on his ass like always, stop him getting what he wants for the thousandth time, and he'll never see it any differently.

He'll never see _him_. See his son.

It'll always be the Alvey show, and it'll always be Nate in the background, a supporting character in his own life, too scared to ever speak up for himself again. An easily-forgotten plot twist.

"Fuck this," Nate whispers, sucking his lip where his dad caught him with a right, and before the doorman can come over, his hand futzing with something at his waist, he turns away. He does what his father always told him not to do—he's done so many things his father told him never to do—and walks away from a fight. Makes it a block before he hears Alvey holler something he doesn't want to make out, and then his walk becomes a sprint.

His dad's voice carries through the dark after him, calling his name, calling him names, and he picks up speed. First up in the morning, first on his feet, and he's using them now to run through the deserted outskirts of Tucson. The sound of his dad calling him a faggot drowns out his knee screaming at him as he pounds pavement, too busy running to wipe the tears off his face.

 

It goes straight to voicemail when he calls Will, which makes sense since it's not even 1 a.m., but he isn't ready even though he should've expected it.

 

"Nate?" Will has that brittle quality to his voice that comes of forcing yourself to be alert before there's caffeine in your bloodstream. "Are you alright?"

Nate, staring out the window at the flat Arizona landscape rushing past and feeling the wheels turn in rhythm with his headache, must make some noise because Will repeats himself. Tacks on a _talk to me_.

Folded up into a too-firm seat on a Greyhound that likely hasn't seen new upholstery since before he was born, Nate imagines for a moment that he does talk to him. Imagines telling Will everything that happened in a hush, tries to imagine everything Will might say in response. Maybe he'd take the apologetic route, say how sorry he was things had gone so badly. Maybe he'd get angry, call Alvey a piece of shit, tell him he didn't deserve everything his dad had slung at him. Maybe he'd try to reassure him, tell him Alvey's just lashing out, that he'll get over it in time. _Give him some space._

He imagines all of that and none of it satisfies. None of it would change anything, undo what's happened. Turn back time and stop Alvey from looking at him like he'd dropped dead right there in front of him, every repetition of a fundamental truth as good as a shot to his head.

_I'm gay_ , he'd said over and over, and Alvey had called him his favorite less than an hour before, and with every refutation he'd said, _I don't have a favorite anymore. I don't have_ you _anymore. I don't_ want _you anymore._

"Nate? Please, man," Will says, and he has no idea how long he's been pleading with him because the highway looks like the same endless early morning eternity it did before, just lighter, and he was lost in his own thoughts. "Please, say something already. Anything. Fuckin'- All you said was 'bye' before. What do you mean, 'bye?'"

He doesn't remember saying anything at all in the voicemail message, but that sounds like him so he doesn't press it. Says instead, "You said I should tell him before he heard it from someone else."

"You- Oh, Christ," Will mutters, and there's a rustling sound of fabric. Imagines Will in bed, sheets pooling around him as he sits up, maybe pushes his hair back out of his face. He's seen it happen, he can picture it clear as the ads playing on the TV inset in the seat before him. "Where are you?"

"He knew. He already knew. I could tell," he says instead of answering. "I never should've…" His throat clicks loudly when he swallows, checks that the old woman next to him is still snoring away. _Are you really gonna do this fucking now?_ There's fifty things he could say next and he can't bring himself to choose. Doesn't like the way any of them feel in his mouth, sentences like _I shouldn't have said anything_ and _how could he have known when for so long_ I _didn't even know_ and _I knew this would happen, why did I let you talk me into this?_

That last one hits him like catching a knee in the gut.

_Women and fucking friends, they come and they go,_ Alvey had said. _In the grand scheme of things they don't mean a fucking thing. We gotta stick together._

What about boyfriends? Where do they figure in?

"Nate, tell me where you are." More rustling noises, clattering, Will cursing under his breath. "I'll come pick you up, you can- I'm sorry-"

"Don't worry about it," he says, phone pulsing once in his hand as a second call comes through. Doesn't have to check the screen to know who it is. "I-I'm fine. Really."

"Nate-"

"I gotta go," he says, tapping the _end_ button just as the phone buzzes again, lets him know he has another new voicemail. Jay's been calling on and off since they left Phoenix two hours ago, and he can't bring himself to listen to any of the messages. Must've taken that long to either knock Alvey out or get him calmed down. Doesn't want to hear him tell him to come back, they can fix this together, or maybe go home ahead of them, _let the old fucker get his head screwed back on. It's a lot for him, you know?_

Jay had wrapped his arms around him and said he'd be there. _Anything, I got your back_ , and even as he'd rocked him back and forth like they were kids again, their parents fighting one room over, Nate had known he was lying. Not on purpose, not 'cause he hadn't meant it at the time, but a promise he wasn't capable of keeping netted him as many points as a lie.

He powers off his phone and holds it tight between his clasped palms, pressed between his knees, and lets the heat from the device warm his cold hands. They'll be in California soon.

 

He beats them back home.

Most of his stuff—clothes, his meds, laptop and toiletries—fits in his gym bag and the backpack he'd taken with him to Tucson; he leaves what doesn't. Contemplates taking the XBox—he's the only one who really uses it—before deciding against it. Leaves his house keys on the living room table at first, then imagines Alvey missing them completely, bitching about it, and tapes them to the fridge with a note that helpfully says _KEYS_.

_Such a smartass_ , he can hear Jay say with a grin and a bristling rub of his head.

Shuts the door behind him and jogs the whole way to Navy. The added weight of his material life doesn't slow him down, and he reflects that he should've been doing this the whole time when he strides into the gym. Guys are sparring, working bags and tussling in the cage, yelling back and forth, and none of them wave at him or call his name, and Nate wonders if he didn't beat his dad back home after all.

"Lisa."

She's leaning against the doorway to the office, arms crossed, but she drops them after a moment when all he does is stand there, shoulders hunched. "This isn't a great place for you to be right now."

His shoulders tighten at the same time his fists do in his pockets. Everyone's staring at him like they know something, which feels like all his nightmares come true. Surely Alvey would never make it public knowledge, never risk the hit to his reputation that having a-

Having a-

"I just want what I'm owed," he says quietly, staring at the door frame instead of at her. Alvey had been shitfaced; there's no knowing what he'd do in one of his rages. Set his own damn self on fire just to singe some other poor bastard. "From-from the classes, and-"

Lisa's already turning away before he finishes, waves him in, and he follows, runners squeaking on the tile floor as he shuts the door behind him. Imagines the gossip spitting back and forth the second the doorknob clicks home; the sudden bark of laughter from the gym confirms his worst fears.

Spinning the safe combo around and around as he stands there vibrating with nervous energy, holding his duffel and unwilling to sit down, give up what height he's got, in case he gets caught.

"I know this isn't worth much, but I don't think what he's doing is right," Lisa says, pulling out an envelope and blowing it open before she starts feeding bills into it. "Banning you like this…"

He's _banned_? The world dropped out from under his feet back in Tucson; he doesn't bother going looking for it now, just locks his knees to keep from falling after it.

Exhaustion. Just that. Keep going.

"He'll get over it. He's just takin' it hard," she says, tossing a stack of cash back into the safe and standing back up, hand against the desk as she holds the envelope out to him. "You're his golden boy, he'll-"

Nate doesn't bother correcting her tenses, _are_ to _were_ , just hefts his bag further up his shoulder and peers into the envelope. Starts pulling out bills—she's overpaid him. Guilt; she'll give him sympathy, give him money, but she won't go against Alvey.

"Nate-"

His flat look stops her from saying anything else.

"He already thinks I'm dogshit." Counts out a hundred, two hundred—Jesus, Lisa. "I'm not going to let him call me a thief too. Or get you in trouble."

"You're too honest," Lisa says with an ugly twist of her mouth, forcing him to drop the cash back on the desk instead of take it. "They don't deserve you."

"Call Jay," he says in response, proving her point. Conversation dies the moment he opens the office door, and he imagines it doesn't resume until after he sets foot outside in the afternoon sunlight and leaves Navy St.

 

Long Beach, picked at random, isn't far enough outside of Alvey's orbit for his life to get any easier. Every gym that might've taken him, MMA or otherwise, even chains, seems to have heard something. Some ugly rumor Alvey had spread to explain away his sudden absence, stinking like the whiff of rot coming off a pensioner's corpse left alone and unvisited in their wartime house, and no matter how he scrubs he can't get rid of it.

Takes public dismissals like jabs glancing off his cheeks and remembers Will telling him it had taken an ocean. An entire ocean between him and his parents, his family, his old life of being so utterly misunderstood, and the thought makes Nate's blood freeze in his veins.

Blames it on the thought of all that cold water, how it reminds him of the cold weather up north in SF. He's a sunshine boy; he's given up so much already, he can't give up the Vitamin D too. Besides, the Bay Area rent would literally kill him.

There's always Arizona… but fuck Arizona.

And in the meantime, he can't get a job.

_KITCHEN STAFF POSITIONS--IMMEDIATE HIRE 4 EXPERIENCE_

_Admin Assistant Wanted_

He could call Will, ask for… he doesn't even know what. A reference? A nudge in the right direction? Yet every time he thinks about sending him a quick text, a flush creeps over him and it's not remotely the same as when they first started seeing each other. It's the swift and borrowed heat of a downed shot of whiskey, liquid courage that won't pay off. It's the flare of pain under the skin when a hit lands.

At some point during the 14-hour bus ride from Tucson to Venice, Will became impossible to separate from what happened at the bar. Front and center in his dreams, the ones where Alvey stomps him into paste on the sidewalk. Jerks awake, blinking away Will's face, his reassuring smile as his ribs crack.

Remembers Jay, fresh from a session of court-ordered anger management, babbling about defense mechanisms and displaced aggression, scapegoating and Freud. Remembers Will saying _it'll be better if it's coming from you_ and _it'll work out_ and _you can't hide forever_ , and decides one night to splice in some AT&T hold music to spice up his brooding and Craigslist browsing. Changing his cell number is best for everyone really. If he talked to Will again he might talk him into meeting, the way he'd talked him into so many things, and if they met up…

Jay, compulsively flicking his cigarette. _Displacement, it's—shut up and listen—it's when you really wanna hit a fucker, but you can't so you hit someone else instead. Sound familiar?_

_Great Babysitters & Nannies Needed!_

_Massage Therapists/Masseuses Wanted for Wellness_

"Just so you know, you'll lose any and all messages in your voicemail inbox," the AT&T rep says. "If there's anything you want to keep, you'll have to-"

"There isn't." Doesn't think about the unanswered calls from his brother, from Will, his notifications a mess, _you have 40 new messages, your voicemail is full, consider deleting-_ "Do it." He's already jettisoned the rest of his life, what's left to save?

_Deliver for DoorDash and Earn up to $19 an Hour!_

_Drive with Lyft_

Nate drops his phone and scrubs his hands over his face, sitting back far enough on the bed that his head knocks against the cheap drywall of his apartment. Undoubtedly puts another dent in the soft surface to join all the others as he stares at the pockmarked ceiling and doesn't, _does not_ , think about how he should've done what Will said and kept some of the prize money for himself.

Not having a car in LA County is like trying to throw a punch with a broken hand—doable, but it hurts. He's too careful with the money he's got left to risk it on something used, not when he's got rent to pay and a prescription to fill for the headaches stemming from the last time he got his head stoved in. Money out, and out, and out.

'Cause never mind getting in at a gym, weeks later and he can't seem to get in _anywhere_. Too many CalState students to compete with. Sure, he got his high school diploma, but barely and no thanks to his parents. Never been fit for anything but the family business of MMA or-

**_Don't be broke!! OPEN CASTING CALL, HIRING: MODELS, M/F, 18+ (Paid up to $5000)_ **

All alone in his room but he still flushes, remembering how many times some guy on Grindr or Scruff had called him hot, asked if he did porn. _u cud u no. u got the bod 4 it_. Always shrugged it off, but now he glances around the bare room that's empty of anyone but himself, half-expecting to see his dad staring disgusted at him from the doorway as he clicks on the listing, or maybe his mom in the corner, sad and mute as he follows her lead for a change. Tagging after his dad like the saddest dog at the end of the parade never got him anywhere, and Jay always seemed to have a great time miming the drug half of her act. Maybe the other half's meant for him.

 

The keywords in the listing were _up to_ , Nate discovers after he arrives. It's a two-hour ride on the Blue Line out to the house, and there's a bunch of other people waiting in the front hall that he barely gets a look at before some woman in cat-eye glasses approaches with a clipboard.

"Hey, hi," she says, smile perfect on her too-skinny face. "You here for…?"

"Uh, p-pictures," he gets out, gripping the backpack strap and glancing at the other people in the hall who are paying him very little overt attention. He catches glances and is struck by how reminiscent they are of fighters at an exhibition, getting a read on the competition.

"Okay, cool, come with me and we'll get your paperwork filled out." Leads him from the white marble hall, ignoring some blonde who complains about how long she's been waiting, and through a twisting series of rooms. The whole set-up reminds him too much of Bob's place, and he's curled stiff as concertina loops over a prison yard fence when they reach a perfectly normal computer room that overlooks a pool.

"Here, this is the release for your image, this is for your life story-" she winks, pointing to a bunch of spots on the forms on the clipboard she handed him, and trades him a pen for his driver's license that she scans into a laptop using her iPhone.

He doesn't bother reading the release, just drops his bag and scribbles his name at the bottom before flipping the page to write in his name, date of birth, his new phone number, and of course he fucks up his address by writing in his old one.

"Don't worry about it, just write it over top," she says when he tells her what happened, pushing her glasses up her nose before typing at a speed he rarely saw Lisa reach. Only gets faster once he hands her back the clipboard to fidget with his backpack zipper, watching her type up his information until a topless woman wanders past the window behind her and slips into the pool, and he considers his shoes instead.

"Oops, missed one," she says, spinning the clipboard back around to face him so he has to catch the pen before it rolls off the desk. "Here, you didn't pick a distributor."

"I- A what?" He peers at it but it's just two words, _Tomcats_ and _Cake_ , and neither mean anything to him.

"An adult multimedia distributor," she explains patiently. "They're the ones running this whole thing. They buy your pics and put 'em online and pay all us good people. You have to pick who you want to go with."

He frowns heavily—that explains less than she thinks. "Does it matter? Whatever."

She lets out a huff like he's being difficult on purpose when in reality he simply doesn't care. "Cake's straight, men and women, Tomcats is gay. Just men."

There's a hollow sensation that pours through him, like everything under his skin disappears. He got the same feeling when he'd donated the money at the outreach center and the guy had switched gears from trying to talk him into a tax receipt to asking about the cuts on his face. Like everything he is is on the surface, obvious to everyone, and there's nothing left below for him to keep.

"Tomcats pays better, if that makes a difference," she tacks on when he doesn't give any indication of choosing. "$60 instead of $50."

Everything under his skin comes flooding back, saliva on his tongue thick like he's going to hurl. Not even a hundred- He shakes it off. _Take what you're given and be thankful you're getting anything at all_ , says a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Alvey. Clicks the pen twice before dropping a knife-slash stroke through the checkbox next to Tomcats, thinking that at least this way there's zero chance of Jay ever finding out. The perv.

 

"You bring your stuff? Great, you can change behind there," the photographer says after shaking his hand, pointing to a folding screen in one corner of the room. It strikes Nate how bizarre it is for him to get any privacy given what he's there to do, but he takes the opportunity to peek around the screen and examine the room.

There's a bizarre assortment of furniture and objects scattered around. At the far end of the room, a folding lawn chair sits in front of a card table covered in expensive-looking camera equipment. A selection of other mismatched chairs marches down the wall between the table and where he changes clothes. To his left, a long brown leather couch's worth of cushions are heaped against one whitewashed concrete wall, but no couch frame in sight.

"Oh thank god, someone who can follow instructions," the photographer says when he emerges from behind the screen. _Think workout gear--shorts, muscle shirts, athletic socks, running shoes,_ the email had read. _Nothing branded. No underwear._ "You'd be amazed how many people think that huge UnderArmour logo doesn't count as 'branding.'"

Nate makes no response, rubbing his wrist as he watches the photographer shift a huge gray umbrella attached to a stand before drawing close.

"Shoulders back," he says, proving to be an optical illusion when he does the same and towers over Nate, measures his height with a hand that skims over Nate's head and wavers mid-air almost at his shoulder. "First time?" he asks as he lopes past him suddenly to punch the couch cushions into shape.

"Y-yeah." The guy darts back and forth like a dragonfly over a pond, abrupt turns and scarecrow limbs reaching here and there making Nate even more nervous than he already is.

"Shows." Rearranges some lights before he tips his chin at the cushions. "Go ahead and sit down."

The floor's slippery under his sock feet, the cushions squishier than he'd expected; it's instinct rather than habit to prop his elbows on his knees, draw them up towards his chest.

_Don't make yourself look smaller than you are,_ Alvey had said, _Bigger. Always bigger. Intimidate, for fuck's sake. Don't give up the advantage._

Intimidation is the last thing on his mind as the photographer hefts a camera and approaches, considering him. First, second, third through fifth things are the almost overwhelming urge to leave. Grab his stuff, say he changed his mind, and bolt. It's only the knowledge that there's nothing better out there that keeps him on his ass.

To his blinking surprise, the photographer snaps a picture of him, and then another when he looks up at the second loud snap of the shutter.

"You're not much of an attention whore, are you?" Considers something on the camera's screen as he asks, missing Nate's quick head shake.

"Not really." That was always Jay, he doesn't say. Jay with his mohawk, his tats, his _look at me look at me_ attitude. Muscling his way in everywhere like he does now, into Nate's head when that's the last thing he wants. If tossing him aside this time isn't as easy as it was the last time he saw him, well… he still gets it done.

The photographer hums. "Look past me at the table."

_Snap_.

"Turn more towards me and spread your legs a little. Feet together- Yeah."

_Snap_.

More instructions, all of them simple enough to follow—turn here, there, tilt your head, lean back, and if Nate keeps wondering when he'll be told to pout more, eyefuck the camera, he doesn't hesitate to do as he's told. It's no different from training, he decides, except for how by the time he's lying on the floor he isn't one throbbing bruise.

"Alright, take off your shirt," the photographer says, and he gets déjà vu as he does so, his mind back in the ring at any number of matches when he'd stripped and heard the same familiar flurry of camera snaps.

"Lean back on your elbows."

_Snap_.

"Go to your side- No, other side."

_Snap_.

"Can you tug your shorts down an inch or two?"

Nate hesitates for as long as it takes him to clench his jaw and feel an answering throb in his skull. Rent or his meds, and it hadn't been as tough a call as it could've been. $60 would cover most of it, he could scrape the rest off his savings. "Like-like this?"

"Perfect." All he sees of the photographer is a large black camera lens pointing at him, like the barrel of a gun, and he swallows, tries to shake off the feeling of foreboding. It's just pictures. Easy money. Jay's sent worse over text to him as a joke.

"Can you lose the shorts?"

There's a snap as he looks up at the camera, eyes wide and dumb. He'd known this was coming, that he'd have to get naked eventually, and isn't this all a lot better than he'd expected? It isn't like there's anyone else around, and the photographer doesn't sound remotely into it. Doesn't look it, either, he thinks, sneaking a quick look at the guy's khaki-covered crotch.

"We're almost done," the photographer prods him, "really."

There's another snap as he hunches his shoulders before he breathes out, then a quick series of snaps as he rolls up onto his elbow to push them down all the way and kick them off. It's instinct to cover himself, but the photographer doesn't tell him to stop. Not immediately, not explicitly, but the posing instructions take care of that.

_Sit up. Knees up. Lie back against the cushions. Lie on your side. On your back. On your front._

Then he turns away, leaves Nate shivering against the wall of the air-conditioned basement to plug his camera into the laptop. "You up for a quick jerk-off scene? It's an extra hundred bucks."

Nate crosses his legs, feeling young in just his socks, and chews his lip. Considering the shit pay, nearly triple would be appreciated. Long Beach's been eating up what he's got left from Navy St. fast; every dollar helps. And it's just jerking off. He's done that for free plenty of times in his life, and hasn't he put out for plenty guys who were little more than a bad profile pic and dumb username on an app? At least this time he'd get paid.

But as he picks at a hangnail, he can't shake the feeling that it won't stop at _this time_. That it'll be jerking off today, and then… then what?

_I always knew you were more like her_ , Alvey says in his head. _Your brother's all me, but you- Fucked up in the head, and look where it got her. Look where it's getting_ you-

"Okay. Sure." The cushions creak under him, leather warmed by his body as he leans back against the cushion propped against the wall. There's another camera pointed at him almost immediately, like it knows he's in danger of changing his mind any second, but he's committed. He's always been too stupid to know what to agree to and what to reject.

"Like this?" he asks, parting his legs. No flurry of snaps this time, just a pinprick-sized red light flashing as he licks his hand and takes hold of his soft cock.

"Knees a bit further- Good. Good. Keep going," the photographer says, and he keeps ten feet away the whole time Nate pretends he's anywhere else, doing anything else.

There's nothing hot about it, nothing he'd normally get excited by. It's awful, really, or so he keeps telling himself as he bites his lip, his hand moving faster and faster. Not because he's thinking of anything—any _one_ —in particular, or because he's suddenly super into beating off in front of a complete stranger, but because it's just simple anatomy. Cause and effect. A hand on his dick, with the minimum lubrication, moving at an appropriate speed-

"Fuck," he grunts, squeezing his eyes shut and dropping his chin against his chest, thighs and abs flexing as his knees fall open so he can push up into his hand. The sound is almost loud enough to drown out his rough breathing, the sound of his dad yelling at him, _You're not gay. You're not, my son's not a-_

"Perfect," the photographer murmurs, and Nate opens his eyes to stare down the barrel of the camera lens before he rubs the side of his calloused thumb over the head of his cock and comes with a gasp.

"You know, you could make a lot more shooting some real scenes," the photographer says afterwards, when Nate's back in his street clothes and he's cleaned his come off the floor with a Lysol wipe. Despite the pricy setup, he's got an old-fashioned receipt book open on his thigh to write in; his pen pauses as he squints at Nate. Even sitting down, he's taller. "You straight?"

That hesitancy that he thinks he'll never shake hits him, and pushing through it is like pushing through the last set of reps, muscles screeching, sweat pouring off, but this time just in his head. All in his head as he says, "N-no. No." He just jerked off in front of this guy; he's not gonna hit him now.

But he still can't manage to get the words out. _No, I'm gay._

"Huh. Go figure," the photographer says, oblivious to how the dismissal cuts through him, the paper tearing providing the rifle fire sound effects. "The pay's shit overall," he continues, holding out the white receipt, "but if you need quick cash, it's hard to beat. Your face and vibe could carry you pretty far."

"My _vibe_?" Folds the receipt— _pictures, $60; scene, $100_ —in half, quarters, eighths. Took less than an hour; maybe he's got a point about speed. "I have a vibe?"

"Sure." Some vague gestures like the guy's juggling invisible cats that's probably meant to symbolize Nate's aura or something. LA people are strange. "A kinda… bashful virgin- Hey!" He points one stick finger when Nate chokes a laugh. "People get tired of thirsty sluts," he calls as Nate turns to leave. "Don't take less than $250."

"Thanks for the tip," he says, winding his way back through the hallway and up the stairs, not returning the nod from the guy in tiny biking shorts who passes him heading in the opposite direction. He's got a check to collect.

 

It reads TC Modeling Inc., and the Bank of America teller doesn't bat an eye when he deposits it, even though he's sure _jerked off on camera_ magically appears on the memo line the second he hands it over.

 

A week later and he's lugging a case of beer at the back of some hipster dive when his phone vibrates in his pocket. Braces it against his hip to fumble his phone out, trying to decide which neurosis precisely is responsible for the glass-crack of fear that snapped through him at the notification. Where other people play mobile games, Words With Friends or Candy Crush or fucking Flappy Bird, all he does is cycle between the Bank of America app and his email. His bank balance has replaced his prior obsession with his XBox Live Gamerscore, his empty inbox a source of dread as great as his once-full voicemail.

And of course there's always the chance—the incredibly unlikely, if not impossible chance—that someone he knows has gotten a hold of his new number. That it's Jay, or Will, or- No, never Alvey. With his luck, Alvey would just show up-

_Hi, this is Tracy with TC Modeling. Would you be able to speak with me about an upcoming shoot? We think you'd be perfect for it._

The case of beer weighs next to nothing compared to what he's used to benching, but it wobbles dangerously nonetheless as he stares at his phone.

Startles at the sudden crashing sound from behind him, and then, predictably: "Hey, Kulina! Hurry it up already. Got a spill in the shape of your name, bro," his boss calls as there's a muffled chorus of laughs.

The signal's good enough in the back for him to call Tracy.

**Author's Note:**

> My secondary takeaway was that [Nick Jonas should've done amateur porn](http://mickeyandmumbles.tumblr.com/post/151563740333) instead of trying to have a music career as a soloist.


End file.
